Journal of Sacred Work

Caregivers have superpowers! Radical Loving Care illuminates the divine truth that caregiving is not just a job. It is Sacred Work.

Recent Posts

About

Former President & CEO of multiple hospital systems and founding president & CEO of 20-hospital OhioHealth, best selling author, film artist, ordained minister, composer, published poet, syndicated T.V. host, trial attorney, federal prosecutor and Municipal Court Judge. Erie is internationally known as the founder of the Radical Loving Care(R)movement. He also heads Erie Chapman Foundation, Dane Dakota Productions, LLC, and Chapman Health International, Inc.

Recent Posts

About

Former President & CEO of multiple hospital systems and founding president & CEO of 20-hospital OhioHealth, best selling author, film artist, ordained minister, composer, published poet, syndicated T.V. host, trial attorney, federal prosecutor and Municipal Court Judge. Erie is internationally known as the founder of the Radical Loving Care(R)movement. He also heads Erie Chapman Foundation, Dane Dakota Productions, LLC, and Chapman Health International, Inc.

Days 34-35 – The “Great” Life

    
Clarabarton     One of the gifts of my childhood came when my father signed me up for a Landmark biographies book-of-the-month club. When the mailman delivered those magic volumes in their brown cardboard boxes I would open them deliciously, letting the titles reveal themselves line by line…"The Life of….Thomas….Jefferson." or "Clara…Barton…Founder of the American Red Cross." 

   Excited, I would race to a quiet corner of the house, open the book, smell the fresh new pages, and start reading. The lives of the great would unfold before me in all their majesty. How wonderful to live the life of a great person, I thought. One day, I could live a big life also, just like one of those heroes!

   As I grew into adulthood I kept asking the question: What did it mean to be a "great" person. For a long time, I thought fame had a lot to do with it. Gradually, it became more clear that meaning mattered more than glory. But, what kind of life is "meaningful"?

   Recently, my wife and I hosted a brand new nurse for dinner. Fresh from passing his nursing exam, his face beamed with delight. "I'm so excited to think that starting in two weeks, I'm going to be taking care of patients with diabetes," he announced.

   Afflicted with epilepsy himself, this nurse knows what it means to suffer with a chronic illness. Now, he will have the chance to help others in ways that he has been helped. Each day that he does this, his life will emerge as more and more meaningful. He is on the verge of "A Great Life."

   In one of her most famous poems, Emily Dickinson answered one of life's most pressing questions with these lines:

"If I can stop one heart from breaking,/ I shall not live in vain;/ If I can ease one life the aching,/ Or cool one pain,/ Or help one fainting robin/ Unto his nest again,/ I shall not live in vain."

   Every day, caregivers live lives of greatness and wealth. They distribute life's most valuable currency – Love.

-Rev. Erie Chapman  

Posted in

6 responses to “Days 34-35 – The “Great” Life”

  1. candace nagle Avatar
    candace nagle

    ah…that’s right…that is why we get up in the morning! Thanks for the reminder. Now I can get up from under these covers, leave the cats to their day,and walk forward into the great opportunity once again.

    Like

    Reply
  2. Karen York Avatar
    Karen York

    Clara Barton was one of my favorite books and first vivid memories of a female heroine. I remember marveling at her bravery and compassion. A great life is one that is lived caring for “the least of these” whether it is acclaimed or even noticed by others. And being a caregiver transcends the boundaries of working in a medical field. Everyone we meet is in need of a caregiver at any given moment…a smile in the grocery store, a kind word while waiting for a flight, a helpful hand through a door. Don’t we all need a blanket of kindness to wrap us up every now and then? I know I do.

    Like

    Reply
  3. Victoria Facey Avatar
    Victoria Facey

    Caregivers distributing Love, what a great story! And the value in this has no price and is warmly welcomed.
    Erie, your message reminded me of how wonderful it is to look forward to something special, as in receiving books as gifts. I look forward to the special meaning that each day will bring: from the project that you slaved on is finally completed; the meeting where all participants agreed on the date, to the copier you were able to fix without down time – waiting on the tech! Don’t laugh – these triumphs don’t mean much to some, but I will gladly take them…

    Like

    Reply
  4. ~liz Wessel Avatar
    ~liz Wessel

    This is a wonderful, wonderful, reflection, Erie. All of it; beginning with your nostalgic childhood memories, to an exploration of meaning, the kind hospitality offered by you and your wife, the tenderness of Emily’s poem and bringing us home to Love! Beautiful!
    Lovely image, Karen,”Don’t we all need a blanket of kindness to wrap us up every now and then?” How true.
    You are a miracle worker V!!!
    Or as Jackson Brown would say. “Get up and do it again,” Candace, amen!

    Like

    Reply
  5. xavier espinosa Avatar
    xavier espinosa

    Martin Luther King said “Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love.”
    Within the universe that is the health-care environment we tend to focus on the role of the caregiver, but it is the greatness that lives in the soul of each contributor that creates the healing partnership.
    During a series of employee engagement sessions I was asked to conduct, we asked the question:”What do you do at work?” When we asked the English speaking employees, the answers were “I’m Frank- I’m a nurse and I give medication” “I’m June I’m a tech and I take x-rays” after the participants had exhausted the job descriptions, eventually someone would come to the gist of the exercise and say “I’m Mary, a nurse and I give hope”
    When we facilitated a group of Spanish speaking employees the first person who spoke said- “I’m Maria, I work in housekeeping in the ICU. When I walk into a patient’s room and see them on the ventilator, I know there is very little I can do for them. I can’t give them medication for pain, I can’t suction them, I can’t touch them. But what I can do is sing. So as I am mopping I sing to them. I sing until I leave the room. And most times when I enter the room and the patient is awake, they will signal to me with their hands so I can sing them again. And I do”
    In the celebration that is the healing, we should never doubt what our coworkers bring to the party/ If they are welcomed- it is always good.
    “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”
    The greatness is in all of us.

    Like

    Reply
  6. Marily Avatar
    Marily

    What a great feeling to be assured… one can never run dry of the most valuable currency – Love. As we see God in each others’ faces… so as the greatness in all of us.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to Victoria Facey Cancel reply